Monday, August 08, 2011

Iron House

Iron House is John
Hart’s fourth novel but I have to confess that I did not come onboard until his
second one, Down River. That one is still my favorite of the three I
have read to this point (and, in fact, it earned Hart his first Edgar Award for
best novel in May 2008), but each successive novel has been instrumental in
enhancing Hart’s well deserved fame and reputation for writing superb
thrillers. In April 2010, The Lost Child turned his second and
third novels into back-to-back winners of the Edgar for best novel, a truly
remarkable achievement. Now, all the
buzz is about Iron House, a book that
many critics and Hart fans are calling his best ever.

Iron House offers
the story of two brothers who were very lucky to survive their infancy, only to
be thrust into a brutal orphanage setting that emotionally crippled one of them
and caused the other to run for his life when he was just ten years old. Michael, just a little older than the brother
he left behind, but physically and mentally much tougher than Julian, finds his
way to New York and a life on the streets.
From there, just in the nick of time, the boy is taken under the wing of
a New York mob boss who comes to think of Michael as a son.

But now Michael wants out of the family business. The man he considers the only father he has
ever had is dying, and Michael receives his blessing to leave the mob and begin
a new life with the woman who is carrying his child. He knows, however, that it will not be that
simple. Two people, the boss’s real son
and the mob’s chief enforcer, are determined that Michael will not walk away
cleanly and they are only waiting for the old man to die before they make their
move. Michael’s choices are these: stay
in the mob, use his money and connections to start a new life in some remote
corner of the world, or kill his two enemies before they can do the same to him
and his lover.

John Hart

Only when Michael is briefly reunited with his long lost
brother does he realize that this is just the tip of a very dirty iceberg.

John Hart does not write run-of-the-mill thrillers. He explores how his characters became the
people they are and why they act the way they do. He spends as much time
developing their inner lives and their relationships with other characters as
he does moving his thrilling plots along.
If there is such a thing as a “literary thriller,” Hart has to be
considered one of the masters of the subgenre.
Make no mistake about it, however - this rather dark book is filled with
graphic violence, chaotic twists and turns, and scenes that will long stick in
the minds of imaginative readers. It is
not an easy book to forget, one that fans of psychological suspense most
definitely should not miss.

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